Autistic and alexithymic traits modulate distinct aspects of face perception

• Published in: Brain and cognition Vol. 137; p. 103616
• Main Authors: Desai, Aishani, Foss-Feig, Jennifer H., Naples, Adam J., Coffman, Marika, Trevisan, Dominic A., McPartland, James C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.12.2019; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Affective Symptoms - physiopathology; Affective Symptoms - psychology; Alexithymia; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autistic Disorder - physiopathology; Autistic Disorder - psychology; Brain - physiopathology; EEG; Electroencephalography; Emotions; Emotions - physiology; Event-related potentials; Evoked Potentials - physiology; Face; Face perception; Facial Recognition - physiology; Female; Humans; Male; N170; Pattern recognition; Perception; Young Adult; N170; Autism; Face perception; EEG; Alexithymia
• ISSN: 0278-2626; 1090-2147
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2019.103616

•Alexithymic and autistic traits uniquely contribute to different stages of emotion processing.•Level of autistic traits influence the N170, which is associated with structural encoding of faces.•Level of alexithymic traits associated with emotion decoding processes, indexed by the N250 component.•Results have important implications for parsing behavioral heterogeneity within ASD. Atypical face processing is a prominent feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but is not universal and is subject to individual variability. This heterogeneity could be accounted for by reliable yet unidentified subgroups within the diverse population of individuals with ASD. Alexithymia, which is characterized by difficulties in emotion recognition and identification, serves as a potential grouping factor. Recent research demonstrates that emotion recognition impairments in ASD are predicted by its comorbidity with alexithymia. The current study assessed the relative influence of autistic versus alexithymic traits on neural indices of face and emotion perception. Capitalizing upon the temporal sensitivity of event-related potentials (ERPs), it investigates the distinct contributions of alexithymic versus autistic traits at specific stages of emotional face processing in 27 typically developing adults (18 female). ERP components reflecting sequential stages of perceptual processing (P100, N170 and N250) were recorded in response to fear and neutral faces. The results indicated that autistic traits were associated with structural encoding of faces (N170), whereas alexithymic traits were associated with more complex emotion decoding (N250). These findings have important implications for deconstructing heterogeneity within ASD.